Venice

by Lynne Connolly

  This was a new battle of wits I was engaged in, one that required a great deal of concentration.

  Freddy was enjoying himself hugely. He had decided to bluster, to be the great lord condescending to spend a night with the hoi polloi. He dropped more names than I knew, though my sister Lizzie could probably keep up with him. He claimed intimate acquaintance with them all.

  When I played a partie with him, he flirted with me outrageously, so I responded. There was none of the uncomfortable oiliness I had felt before when Squires tried to flirt with me. In any case, such a valued client of the Lockes deserved all the attention I could give him and Ravens might appreciate it too.

  “Have you been to the Haymarket, yet, Mrs. Locke?” The Opera House in London was a favourite meeting place of the fashionable world in the Season.

  I shook my head, examining my cards closely and sorting them carefully. “I hope my husband will take me when we return to London. Point of five.”

  “Good. If he does not, you must apply to me,” he said, positively winking. “I usually have a box at the beginning of the season.”

  “You are too kind, my lord.”

  “Not at all.” He patted my hand.

  I beamed back at him. “Sequence of six.” He had mastered the shuffling technique so well the hand he had dealt me was unbeatable, a dream.

  “Good.” He gave me the point and I added up all the other sequences I had, three in all. “It would be an honour to entertain such a lovely lady as you in my box.”

  Ravens sat at the next table, playing Richard. He could easily hear our conversation. I flicked open my fan, inwardly cursing when I heard the sharp click, demonstrating the expertise I had been practising for the last month or two. Mrs. Locke wouldn’t be quite so expert. “My husband might remain here, my lord.”

  “Then you must bring a companion,” he said firmly.

  I decided Mrs. Locke was tiring of her husband. “Your lordship is most kind. I would love to come, if you send an invitation.”

  “Count on it, dear lady.” I had no doubt he would remember; although the invitation would come from the irrepressible Freddy Thwaite, not Lord Thurl.

  We played out the partie and then I moved on. This time I was with Mr. Ravens, showing he had let Richard win the set, as it was the victor who changed tables. He beamed at me, showing his pleasure and then I dealt to begin the set of six. He let me win, not as much as I had won from Freddy, but I showed twenty guineas profit from that hand. Perhaps that was how he was allowing us to pay off our debt, or perhaps we were expected to hand it all back at the end of the evening.

  While we played, I glanced across at Squires-Jeffries, now playing with the Signor. He was losing. I could see the sweat on his forehead, rolling down his cheeks and beading his nose and his look of concentration. It would be my turn to play him next, if he won. At least he would get a fair hand from me, but I didn’t think he would be rising from the table just yet. Then I saw his grip on the cards was slackening, his creased brow clearing, although the distressing rivulets of perspiration remained. He wasn’t losing after all; he was winning because the cards he had drawn from the talon were excellent. Signor Verdi was teasing him, punishing him, though not as much as Richard might do if provoked into losing his temper.

  So he came to the table where I sat, after Ravens had lifted my hand to his lips in an attempt at gallantry and moved on. He sat heavily, smiling in greeting. I wasn’t sure yet if he knew who I was, I had to continue to be Mrs. Locke. I dealt the cards.

  If he admitted to me that he knew me, then he must also know I had seen him and we knew what he was up to. It would change our game, but we’d agreed on this as part of our plan. I started generally, but I couldn’t take too long. I only had six hands of piquet to do it in.

  “Do you like Venice, Mr. Squires?”

  “It is a very pleasant place with ladies such as you in it.” He leered at me. I felt Richard’s tension, though I didn’t look at him.

  I had a more normal hand this time. “Point of four. I have seen the Basilica now, a most impressive building. Of course, my husband has seen it before, he spends much more time in Venice than I do.”

  “To?”

  “King.”

  “Good. I myself was in St. Mark’s Square today. I hear there was quite a commotion yesterday.”

  This could be my opening, but I had to be careful. I leaned over the pad to total my score for points. “Oh?”

  “A nobleman was hurt,” he said, looking at me directly. “They said it was Lord Strang, but here we see him, well and thriving, so it must have been someone else.”

  I managed a smile. “It must have been, sir.” Did he suspect Gervase had arrived? That would be a pity. “My husband, on the other hand, woke up with a very sore shoulder this morning. Little could be done about it and I think it still pains him more than he admits.”

  He tapped the side of his face, ostensibly studying his cards, but I could see he was intrigued. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “Sequence of four.”

  “No good. Five.” I passed him the paper so he could total his score and watched him note it down carefully. He took his cards seriously, conversation coming to a halt while he studied his hands and worked out his score, his concentration obvious. He looked up and smiled. “Your husband is a signally fortunate man, Mrs. Locke.”

  “How so?” I said brightly, trying to draw him out. “Fourteen queens.”

  “No good.” He must have four kings or aces. He concentrated on the paper. “To have such a lovely wife, of course.” I watched him take a sip of wine, waiting until he had done with his scoring.

  Now we came to the second part of the hand. He led and we began to play it out. “I wish he thought so,” I said, sighing slightly.

  He looked up at me. “I would have thought was evident to all. How long have you been married, ma’am?”

  “Five years, sir,” Mrs. Locke replied.

  He accepted the lie. “Not enough time for a marriage to become stale, I would have thought.”

  “I think he admires—other qualities of mine,” I said sadly, trying to be pathetic.

  It seemed I succeeded, at least in convincing him I didn’t know who he was. He accepted my masquerade and began to tease me on it, asking me questions I had to improvise the answers to. It was just as well I was giving up Mrs. Locke. Her life was becoming too complicated for me to cope with.

  I sat opposite the man who had tried to murder my husband twice, death in my heart, sure now I would kill for Richard but unable to touch his would-be assassin. Richard wanted to know too much for us to kill him in cold blood, or perhaps at all. I spun stories for him about Mrs. Locke and her sad life—her poor health, her unsatisfactory husband and Squires-Jeffries laughed at me. I was sure he didn’t know we had seen him now. He was too arrogant in his teasing, too sure of himself and he was winning at cards.

  Unlike our host, whom I saw was now having a very bad time, passing between Freddy and Signor Verdi. Freddy was having the time of his life, losing to someone and then beating Mr. Ravens. Signor Verdi was winning with the detachment of the professional.

  Eventually I got to play my husband. We played a desultory partie, hardly looking at each other, a couple only together because of the wedding ring, bored and dissatisfied with their lives and each other. Richard won and as he got up to move on I caught a whiff of the perfume he habitually wore. It swept me into a sudden desire for him. It took me completely by surprise. I don’t know if he noticed, but he glanced down at me as he passed. I dared not meet his eyes.

  At the end of the evening we were sure we could call it a complete success. By the time we broke for supper, Mr. Ravens was looking decidedly black. We didn’t know how much he had lost, but it was he who now resorted to notes of hand. Richard and I had to look serious, as our conies had hardly been skinned. It was risky, to let an amateur like Freddy play the game but after this evening I knew that if Freddy had been forced to earn his livi
ng he would have done very well indeed.

  We left together, Freddy kindly offering us a seat in his gondola, our gondola. We didn’t want a post mortem with them tonight, we wanted it on our territory, so we invited the Ravens to visit us the next day, at about midday and they accepted, grim-faced.

  We travelled past the palazzo in silence and then, when we were out of earshot, Freddy let out a quiet crow of triumph. “I can’t remember when I enjoyed myself so much!” He looked around at Richard and me, sitting behind him and the Signor.

  “I told you,” said that gentleman, his heavy Italian accent magically dropping away. “Freddy is a natural at this. With practice he could beat anyone!”

  “So if your fortune on the tables at home suddenly improves,” Richard commented, “I’ll get very suspicious and refuse to play with you any more.”

  Freddy laughed. “Oh, I can promise you now I won’t do it there. I always thought excessive play a bore before, but knowing you’re going to win somehow puts a gloss on things.”

  I let my hand trail in the dark water and then looked up to see Richard watching me, smiling. “That’s not too clean, you know.”

  I smiled back, got out my handkerchief and dried my fingers, feeling like a child caught out in mischief. I saw he had stretched his arm along the back of the seat and I leaned against him, resting my head on his shoulder.

  Freddy and Signor Verdi were busy discussing their success animatedly, their backs to us, so Richard put his finger under my chin and tilted my face up to his. He wasn’t drunk tonight, so he didn’t kiss me with quite the abandon he had done the previous time, but it still sent a thrill through me. “Did I imagine it earlier?” he murmured.

  There was no point denying it. “No, you didn’t.” I lowered my voice even more, put my mouth next to his ear. “It was the scent of you as you passed me.”

  He laughed softly as I withdrew after flicking my tongue around his ear. He mouthed, “Wanton!” and I sat up hurriedly when Freddy turned to talk to us again.

  When we got back to the apartment, Gervase was still up, waiting for us. He saw from our faces as we entered the drawing room it had been a success.

  We toasted our triumph and I sat down next to Gervase while Freddy and Signor Verdi recounted their adventure. They had given the notes of hand to Richard and he counted them up while they were talking. Eventually, he looked up, something like awe on his face.

  “Twenty thousand and some pounds!” he exclaimed softly. “How in God’s name did you manage that?”

  Signor Verdi grinned. “I doubled up on the last two parties I played with the man. The first time, I let him think he was going to win, but the last hand of the partie gave me the advantage. But he came so close, poor man!”

  “Poor now, certainly,” Richard remarked dryly.

  “The second time I devastated him. So delicately played! I had to be careful, you understand, because I was playing with a professional, but by the last hand I wanted to give him a remembrance of me. He is good, certainly, but not as good as me. He cannot shuffle a deck so the opponent deals himself a bad hand, as I have tried to teach you. He has not the finesse, only the general understanding, which is well enough for most, but not for me.”

  “You are superb, Signor Verdi,” I said warmly, since it was obviously expected of someone. He stood and bowed. I caught Richard’s attention on me and I was lost again.

  I wondered if this would ever wear off, if I would ever feel normal when I was with him, or if this was normal from now on. Somehow, sitting across from him, able to look at him but not touch him made matters worse, but this was like the first time I had looked at him and for all I knew, like the last. I felt totally lost in him and helpless and foolish for feeling it.

  I looked away, towards Freddy, who was telling Gervase how he had dealt the cards and how much he had won. “He’ll come here tomorrow,” he said and turned to Richard. “What time did you tell him to come?”

  “About twelve,” Richard replied. “Would you like to be here when he arrives, or would you like to be announced?”

  An unholy gleam lit up Freddy’s soft brown eyes. “Oh, I’d like to be announced after you’ve dropped your bombshell! Immediately after, I think, don’t you?”

  The sparkle in Richard’s eyes echoed the gleam in his friend’s. “An excellent idea. Come just before and go into the music room next door, then Carier will fetch you at the right time. I always find precise timing improves these things enormously.”

  “Rather like a play,” I put in. I didn’t meet his eyes.

  “Very much,” he agreed. “And Gervase, if you could come in at some point, it might persuade the gentleman of our veracity.”

  “Delighted,” Gervase said.

  “Signor Verdi?”

  Richard turned to the gentleman, silent up until then, but he grimaced and spread his hands in a very Italianate gesture. “I would prefer not to be here at all, if it can be arranged, my lord. I would like to retain the integrity it has taken me so many years to achieve.”

  “Would you? A pity. I was going to ask if you would like to join a little enterprise of ours. Would you come and discuss it another time?”

  “Discussion is one thing,” said the gentleman cautiously, “And of course, I am always open to a good business proposition, but I would rather avoid this meeting you plan for tomorrow.”

  Richard accepted his refusal. “Very well. There’s one more act to our play and then we’re done. We’ll discuss the matter further then, if you wish.”

  Signor Verdi said he was delighted, bowed to us all and took his leave, wishing us good fortune on the following day.

  Freddy and Gervase were still involved in discussing all the affairs of the evening, but Richard stood and held his hand out to me. “I’m sure you’ll excuse us. After her recent shock, I’m anxious to make sure Rose gets enough rest.” They both stood and bowed to us and we left the room.

  We went sedately up to the bedroom door in silence, but as soon as we were inside the room and closed the door behind us, I fell on him as though my life depended on it. Laughing, he swept me up and on to the bed, asking no questions, responding to the fire in me and there, fully dressed, we made love urgently, as though we’d been apart for months. My tension released, like a violin string snapping and I enjoyed the sensations coursing through me, as it became less of a need, more a delight.

  I had taken him totally by surprise, but he responded as I wanted him to, recognising and knowing what I wanted without words, without explanation. The only items he’d removed were his coat and wig, which when I was sentient again I was thankful for. The coat was made of inferior material and would have been scratchy against my skin. Although terminally dishevelled, I was still dressed. When he finally gasped in his own moment of ecstasy and took his weight off me, we lay side by side in a confusion of clothes, getting our breath back.

  He put his hand to his forehead and laughed. “What brought that on?”

  I looked at him, my breath still unsteady, then I sat up and began to unhook my bodice at the front. “I don’t know. But when you walked past me this evening, dressed in that dowdy suit, but smelling so deliciously like you, it reminded me at a most inappropriate time what we’ve done here and what I’d like to do.” I smiled and slid the gown off, turning to the tapes at my waist. “You’re corrupting me, my lord. I was a well-bred young lady before I met you.”

  “And now you’re a lascivious wanton?” He loosened the laces of my stays at the back for me, so I couldn’t see his face. “You’ve a long way to go before you reach that point, my love. But you are constantly surprising, tremendously exciting, a joy to be with.”

  I got off the bed, the easier to remove my petticoats, pockets and side hoops. I glanced at him and saw him leaning on one elbow. He watched me by the light of the candles. I caught his gaze and kept it, as I lifted my shift over my head, letting it drop to the floor and then bent to undo my garters and unroll the plain stockings Mrs. Locke wore.r />
  He hadn’t moved, but watched me, smiling. I felt totally at ease with him now, dressed or not, as once he had promised me I would. I went back to him without hesitation and began to unfasten the buttons of his waistcoat. He let me, touching and caressing me while I undressed him. He distracted me from a task I had never undertaken before, discovering the intricacies of men’s dress at first hand. I hadn’t realised the stock at his neck was fastened by little buckles at the back, for instance, or how to divest him of the complicated arrangement of buckles, buttons, breeches and stockings at the knee. It kept me busy for a while and made him laugh again. He didn’t offer to help, but watched me struggle until I cursed and tried to pull it all apart by brute force.

  Then he pulled me up to him, lay back and had his laugh out, only stopping to say, “These are easy, my sweet! Wait until I’m in full Court rig!”

  “I wouldn’t dare to approach you then, you’ll be far too grand to touch.”

  “I shall make you.” He sat up and began to make some sense of my efforts, kicking the bundled up breeches, stockings and buckles free of the bed. He pulled his shirt off over his head so he was as naked as I, then he turned to hold me again. He told me the most gratifying things—that my skin was satin to his touch, my mouth the softest he had ever kissed, my love the sweetest. He caressed me to demonstrate his words, loved me again. It was a wonder we got any sleep at all that night.

  Chapter Nineteen

  I WAITED UNTIL AFTER breakfast to dress properly the next morning. I chose the white flowered silk I’d worn before, making sure I looked my best, every inch the aristocrat, then I went into the drawing room and found a book. Usually, I would have some kind of sewing to keep me busy, but I had lost the desire and the time recently, something I would have to rectify if I ever spent enough time out of bed.

  Richard had retired to his dressing room to dress and had not yet come out, but Gervase joined me and began to tell me about the joys of Italy.